Time is an issue for most entrepreneurs and small business owners, even more so than money. Since so much of our time is invested in our businesses, we have little time for the necessities – things like following up with friends, setting up a budget, and reading the news.
Luckily, several smart companies have built great web products that simplify life and help you save time when there’s no time to waste. Some of these products are for business time management, while others are for personal use. Either way, once you try these tools, you will wonder why you weren’t using them in the first place.?
1. Remember The Milk
Remember The Milk is one of the best tools available for task management. Remember The Milk makes adding, updating, and remembering tasks simple. And as a bonus, it’s completely free. Its strength is in its features, which include the ability to share tasks with your team and the ability to receive reminders via SMS, Twitter, email, and instant messenger.
Set up your tasks for the week (I suggest on Sunday) and let it do the work for you – it will remind you about your kid’s hockey game and your mother’s birthday without fail. If you’re a heavy iPhone or BlackBerry user, Remember The Milk integrates with them as well.
2. Jott
Jott is an amazingly accurate voice-to-text note-taking system. You simply call Jott while you’re on the go and tell it your thoughts. Jott will transcribe your words and send it to your email, Google Calendar, Remember The Milk, Twitter, or phone. Jott also excels at assigning tasks – you can send your Jotts to anyone on your team at any time. This is a must if you are always thinking up new ideas.
3. Google Reader
Reading news is time-consuming. Newspapers, news websites, blogs – all of that information can be scattered. Bring it all together with Google Reader, one of the best RSS Feed readers and aggregators on the market. Google provides a great tutorial on using Google Reader if you’re new to news aggregators.
If you’re already using an RSS reader but find yourself spending too much time reading the news, here is a good tip: create three folders – Daily, Weekly, and The Rest. Blogs and news absolutely vital to your work and personal life go into the daily reading bin, while less time-sensitive reads fall into the Weekly bin. Throw personal blogs and everything else into The Rest and only read it when you have a solid chunk of free time.
4. Mint
Mint is one of the best financial organizers around. You link your online financial accounts to Mint (don’t worry –they go to great lengths to make it safe), and it automatically tracks and organizes all of your financial purchases.
Create an account for your personal accounts and one for your business accounts, and you can track your stocks, credit cards, mortgages, and budget in one place. You will find yourself managing your budget far less.
5. Basecamp
Is your business team missing tasks, not because they’re lazy, but because there’s no record? Are your to do lists post-it notes? If so, investing in Basecamp by 37signals may be the best decision you ever make. Basecamp is a premier project management tool that helps your team plan out tasks, assign to-dos, share files, and track hours. The basic version is free, but investing in the Plus package is well worth the money to make sure things are getting done.
6. Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a great way to share information and manage tasks. Google Calendar allows for cross-collaboration, reminders, agenda setting, and of course, integration with Google Docs and Gmail. For example, it’s quick and easy to take a time and date from your email and put it into your Google Calendar.
There are hundreds of other tools for getting things done and running a business, but the two important themes for any time-sensitive business owner are organization and automation. Organize your life and business so that tasks don’t fall by the wayside and you don’t have to do clean-up.  Automate all of your lower level tasks, like the budget and reminders, and you’ll find yourself concentrating on the higher level tasks, like acquiring customers and spending more time with your family. Always think about organization and automation when deciding whether or not a new online tool will save you time.
